Pumpkin Pie
by Bespectacled.Introversion
Summary: Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and Iruka decides he and his shadow have some baking to do.


**A/N: Just a short drabble I did for the holiday. It's a day late, but I blame the food coma.**

"It's cold."

"I told you to wear a jacket."

"But it wasn't cold _earlier_."

"You were _inside_ earlier," the brunette sighed, unraveling a thick green scarf from his own neck to wrap the cloth comfortably around that of the small blonde child walking next to him. Its deep, rich color contrasted sharply with the boy's garish orange clothes but he seemed to care little about the sharp contrast and smiled happily, though much of the gesture is hidden behind the fabric now covering the lower half of his face as he slipped one tiny mitten into the large hand swinging at the man's side.

In a much happier tone, the boy continued, "Thanks, 'Ruka-sensei. Where are we going?"

"Shopping. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, remember?"

"What's that?"

Gentle brown eyes met inquisitive, mildly confused blue as Iruka looked down, and the expression tugged at his heart for a moment before he was able to answer. "It's a holiday where you come together with your family and friends and remember all the good things in life that you have to be thankful for. Usually there's lots of yummy food to eat, too. It's all great fun."

"Oh," is the only response he received as they entered the store, several of his chuunin friends waving as they passed by in the aisles, laden with their own baskets of food. It put a pleasant smile on the man's face as he pulled ingredients from the shelves and set them carefully in the basket on his arm, occasionally allowing his young tag-along to handle the less delicate items.

The relative silence of the shopping endeavor both pleased and worried Iruka, he noted as they walked back toward his apartment in silence. _Silence_. Such a word almost never coincided with Naruto unless it came flying _at_ the little boy from the mouth of an adult after one of his shenanigans (which, admittedly, were rather troublesome). A concerned glance revealed the big blue eyes fixed on the snowy ground, one grocery bag held dutifully in both small hands and a tiny scowl of concentration on the boy's face that surely would have been adorable had the teacher not harbored such a gnawing worry in his chest. "Whatcha thinkin' about?" he tries kindly.

". . .Nothin'."

"Oh, really? Is that very interesting? You look like you're thinking awfully hard there."

"Yeah. " The determined frown remained in place, as did Naruto's gaze, and soon Iruka's face sported a similar expression as he unlocked the door to his home, ushering the boy into the warmth first and quickly following. Groceries ended up on the table as the pair shed their jackets and gloves. A warm, crackling fire soon sprung up in the grate and distracted the blonde long enough for Iruka to set up for their pie-making experiment.

"All right, come on, you," the man chuckled, swinging the child up and around several times before setting him gently on a stepstool next to the counter, a wide smile on his chubby cheeks distorting the whisker lines. "Let's make some pie. First you've got to put the pumpkin in the bowl."

Naruto's nose wrinkled slightly at the open can. "That's not a pumpkin."

"It's been pureed, so it used to be a big pumpkin like you see on Halloween before it got mixed up into this," the brunette explained as he measured out spices into a small dish for the boy. "Once you do that, add this in and mix it really well, okay?"

"Got it!" One little hand brandished a wooden spoon before the child went to work on his bowl, stirring the ochre substance with a vengeance and nearly tipping it over in the process.

"Iruka-sensei, I want to crack the eggs!"

Iruka almost flinched as he recalled the pancake disaster of last month. Naruto somehow managed to sneak into the teacher's home, waking him rudely at around five in the morning by flinging his little body onto the sleeping chuunin and yelling "good morning!" as loud as his young voice went (which, Iruka would tell you, is _way too damn loud_). Despite the less than ideal awakening, the big blue eyes sucked Iruka in and rendered him all but incapable of doling out the proper amount of annoyance and displeasure. Instead, he offered to make pancakes for the both of them. What was he thinking? By the time they finished his poor kitchen sat in shambles; flour and egg yolk and shells littered the counter, the floor, the ceiling (oh God, the _ceiling_), and dirty dishes filled his sink to the brim. But of course the dirtiest of all was undeniably the two people in the kitchen, who had engaged in the disaster-causing flour fight after Naruto dropped several eggs on the floor or cracked them messily on the counter. He still remembered the plop of egg yolk on his head as it dripped from the ceiling while they ate the hard-earned pancakes, all slimy and gross and-

"Sensei?"

The little voice drew him back to the present to give the child an apprehensive look, offering a compromise. "How about we crack them together?"

And so it happened that the rest of the process went by without a hitch, large tan hands carefully wrapping around Naruto's to gently add the eggs in, followed by sugar, then evaporated milk before they finally poured the mixture into deep pie dishes lined by crusts Iruka had made earlier that day and slipped them into the oven. "You want to try some?" the man offered, tilting the bowl to show Naruto the leftover filling.

His button nose wrinkled again. "Eww. It looks icky, I don't want to eat that."

Iruka laughed warmly, popping a spoonful into his mouth and shaking his head before doling the rest out into two much smaller dishes and adding them to the oven. "Suit yourself. I guess we'll bake this too, and eat it later."

The pair settled on the couch then, and watched the fire as Iruka told stories about things he did with his friends and family on holidays, or about traditions in other lands, or about whichever mission Naruto wanted to reenact. The brunette soon noticed that his little companion began to brood again, no longer animatedly acting out the tales he heard and instead staring at the fire with an almost forlorn expression. At the end of one story he finally spoke, a quiet, "Iruka-sensei?"

"Yes, Naruto?"

"You said that Thanksgiving is when you see friends and family, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Then. . .I can't do Thanksgiving."

"What?" the brunette turned completely to face the child, baffled. "What do you mean? Of course you can be part of Thanksgiving."

"But. . . ."

"What? What is it?"

"I don't _have_ any friends or family."

Iruka felt his heart break. The boy's tone was so matter-of-fact as those big, watery blue eyes met his sadly, hands folded in his lap and sniffling slightly, and he realized how terribly true the statement was. Most of Konoha either hated the blonde for the beast contained inside him and the damage it caused, or considered him a nuisance for all of the pranks he pulled as a desperate vie for attention. "Oh, Naruto." This had to be the thing weighing on him all day, when he fell silent at the store, on the walk back, and no doubt at the back of his mind as they made pies he felt he had no right to partake in. The teacher opened his arms then, scooping the six year old into his lap with a massive bear hug. "You have me. I'll be your family, and you can be mine."

"Really?"

The hope in his voice had Iruka's shattered heart melted into a puddle of warmth, eyes slightly wet. He always did cry too easily. "Of course. Now what do you say we go check on those pies?"

Naruto cheered and ran off into the kitchen at once as Iruka stood slowly and let out a long sigh, swiping at his eyes in an attempt to dry them. A loud thump and a grumbled "ow!" had him rushing from the room with a laugh.

That boy, honestly.

**A/N: I do hope you enjoyed this, if so (or if not) please drop me a review! All feedback is welcome!**


End file.
